Home Assignment Snapshot

We thought life was crazy before we left the States ... now we know it was just preparation for what our two months in the UK would be like! Home assignment is both fun because we get to catch up with family and friends and frantic, fitting everything into our schedules and working out all the different speaking engagements! Here is a snapshot of what we've been up to!

We have now given 9 update presentations, 4 kids talks and visited 5 of the 6 churches we have planned to go to (1 more to go)! There has been loads of interest in what we're doing and we have enjoyed catching up with people who have been supporting us from the start and meeting new people who will now be following our updates.

One of the things we have been sharing about is how faithful God has been, providing the funds we need for both shipping our belongings from America to Tanzania and towards a suitable vehicle once we get there. While there is a small allowance from MAF, it is a long way from covering the cost. For those of you who have been asking ... if you would like more information about giving us a one off gift towards that, you can either contact us and give via Stewardship where we can recoup the gift aid or contact MAF directly and specify that it is a 'personal gift'.

We now have new MAF cards, updated ready for our next adventure, the move to Tanzania. For those of you who have received our previous ones, they should be arriving on your doorsteps over the next few weeks, otherwise let us know and we can include you in our adventures and updates and send one to you!

While we have been including all the speaking engagements in our schedule, one great thing about being on 'home turf' is catching up with good friends face-to-face and for the girls having the chance to make new friends with their children. Some of the friends we have seen are working all over the world like us ... and just happen to have their UK time coinciding with ours, an added bonus!

We have tried to enjoy some down-time and fun-time as well. We were tourists in London for the day with Jenny's sister. The train ride was exciting enough for the girls (no public transport where we lived in Ohio made this adventure enough) but then we went on a Duck Tour of the city too!

While the majority of the UK came to a standstill in the snow, we made the most of it and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Considering we were used to it from living in the States and the fact that it might be our last cold winter for years, we were determined to have some fun ... both in the garden and over the park on the sledge! Even Nana joined in the silliness!

This just gives you a glimpse of some of things we have got up to ... in between all the paperwork that goes into getting new passports for certain family members, processing visas, a visit to the MAF office, being in contact with Tanzania about lots of little details, having meetings with banks etc about address changes, catching up with family, a week's training (still to come), driving around the south of England to see people, eating food that we have missed while in Ohio and won't be able to get once we're in Dodoma ... and so many more things.

For the most part we're enjoying ourselves although at times it is extremely tiring. The flexibility is great but all four of us will also be pleased when we reach some point of normality and routine again once we get to Tanzania in just a few weeks time!

Christmas & New Year with Family

For only the second time in Abigail's lifetime we got to celebrate Christmas with family in the UK. The first time she was only 3 months old!

After the craziness of packing up our lives in Ohio, we chose not to schedule anything but instead set aside a few weeks to both recover and spend time with family.

Abigail enjoyed opening Christmas presents right from the day after we arrived in the country ... and got stuck straight into the lego she got from Popeye, until the jetlag hit her and she was wiped out in the middle of the floor for an hour or two!

 

While we hadn't had a chance to do anything much festive in our house in the States, the girls got to decorate trees at both grandparents houses and had lots of fun making paper chains with Grandma to decorate their living room.

Naomi kept disappearing behind the tree at Grandma and Gramps' house and was often found picking up and putting down different presents in the days leading up to December 25th!

We stayed with Mark's parent's at the beginning and as you can see from the photo's below, getting to used to having grandchildren around can be both a snuggly and tiring business!

On Christmas morning, a week after we got back and with the girls still adjusting to the time zone we had the privilege of waking them up at about 9am ... and not the other way around with them bouncing around at some ungodly hour! We opened our stockings before breakfast and then waited for Nana and Uncle Stan to join us before enjoying a Christmas feast and opening the some more pressies all together.

For New Year we spent some time at Mark's parents cottage in Cornwall with them, Mark's sister and Jenny's mum. It was a chance to eat Cornish pasty's, cream tea's and walk along the beach, even if it was freezing cold!

Most of the week was grey and rainy ... yes, very British, a big welcome back to the country! It wasn't until the final night that we actually got to do one of the fun things that we had planned to do on New Year's Eve. Abigail's favourite movie is Tangled, the Disney Rapunzel story. We bought some floating lanterns, which they release in the movie, to light when we were there. It was a really fun way to finish the week ... watching them float away into the night sky!